The microscopic arrangement of atoms in a material has great impact on its behaviour. 2D materials are a particular class of materials formed by few-atoms thick layers stacked on top of each other, and offer great flexibility for engineering the arrangement of atoms at the microscopic level. The researcher investigated different 2D materials to find out how individual atoms provide the added functionality required for information-processing technologies of the future.

This project delves into unexplored territories of spintronics; control of magnetization-dynamics by using synthetic-multiferroic-heterostructures. My objective is to obtain full-control over the magnetization-dynamics of a (nano-)magnet without using magnetic fields. I foresee that this will result in a novel way of power-efficient and fast-coherent-control of magnetization. This has a huge potential for creating commercial devices (memory, data-storage, logic) and will create new paradigms in the fundamentals of the underlying physics by new ways of probing competing interactions in a cleverly chosen, simple materials/device system. Within the research proposed I will combine three emerging fields of magnetism-manipulation. Two of the fields are electric-field mediated, this allows for ultrafast and power-efficient stimuli to be applied. Here, I will manipulate the magnetization of an ultrathin perpendicularly magnetized magnet by coupling it to (i) ferroic ordering of a ferroelectric material and (ii) induced electric-charge at its interface in a synthetic-multiferroic-heterostructure. The third is using the (iii) spin-Hall-effect to create a spin-polarized current in a non-magnetic material which, when injected into a ferromagnet, can be used to manipulate its magnetization. I foresee that the combined action of the three effects will give a pull-pull-push manipulation of the magnetization which I will test in a novel device. An exciting consequence is that by synchronizing/modulating the effects on the time scale of magnetization dynamics a coherent-control of the magnetization is expected. This would not only lead to an active control of the magnetization-dynamics and state but also logic-operations can be expected My extensive experience in growth, fabrication, characterisation and understanding of magnetization dynamics in perpendicularly-magnetized materials combined with the expertise and facilities of the host-group and collaborators in ultra-fast magnetization dynamics, charge-controlled-magnetic-anisotropy, ferroelectric-ferromagnetic-heterostructures, and theoretical understanding of the spin Hall effect, will guarantee this to be an exciting and productive pioneering research direction.